Oldham manufacturing history

 Oldham was one of the Lancashire cotton towns but the story of Oldham is perhaps a little different to that of Preston with the advantage the town took of the Joint Stock company following the passing of the Limited Liability Acts. These were intended to encourage third party investment in businesses, but in Oldham they were used to encourage the participation of the workforce in the company for which they worked. In his book Oldham Past and Present, James Middleton suggests that the idea ‘prevails more in books than in practice’, yet there were examples of mill companies being owned in this way, the Sun Mill of 1860 being just one.

For Oldham the ending of the American Civil War sparked what is termed the ‘floating mania’ as dozens of companies where formed with investment from all sections of their stakeholders. Writing in 1903, Middleton gives some figures: in the Oldham district 270 cotton mills containing twelve and a half million spindles and eighteen thousand looms. These mills absorbed about one quarter of all the cotton imported into the country. Oldham’s proficiency at spinning fine yarn was such that the cotton industry in Burnley focused on weaving, buying in yarn from Oldham.

Oldham had other skills. Iron founders, Platt Brothers moved their focus on to wool and cotton spinning and weaving machinery. They also produced machinery for the weaving of carpets.

In the 1920s, the cotton market contracted and with it the demand for textile machinery. There were six significant manufacturers, Platt Brothers and Asa Lees of Oldham, Brooks and Doxey and Hetherington of Manchester, Howard and Bullough of Accrington and Dobson Barlow of Bolton. These firms merged into Textile Machinery Makers which eventually became a division of the machinery company Stone-Platt. The company made shells during the Second World War also training some 8,000 people for employment elsewhere. This company was broken up in 1982.

Ferranti moved his electrical engineering works to Hollinwood in Oldham, and, in 1897, employed seven hundred people. The company produced all that was needed for the generation of electricity, facing competition from the two large American companies: Westinghouse which set up in Trafford Park in Manchester and British Thomson Houston which came to Rugby. In time, Ferranti found their focus on electricity meters which provided the backbone of the company's business for decades. The next focus was large transformers required by the national grid, but also switchgear where the company competed with Reyrolle of Newcastle. The spirit of Ferranti was the exploration of new areas of technology. Much of this was paid for by the profits from meters.

With the advent of radio, Ferranti needed more space and leased a factory at Stalybridge. Here the company researched the components of radio, Marconi having secured patents over most elements. Ferranti engaged engineers and scientists and importantly worked with academics, to begin with at Imperial College, London. In spite of losses, the company persevered, gaining all the time increased knowledge and skills. For Oldham this provided a remarkable cushion for the decline in its textile industry with ground breaking science taking its place. From radio, Ferranti moved to television and cathode ray tubes. They researched and produced complex valves and explored very short wave radio which led them to radar. They took a further factory at Moston.

By the time of the Second World War, the company employed 12,000 people making radio devices including a radio-marker buoy called a Jellyfish and importantly carrying on radar research in conjunction with Metro-Vock at Trafford Park. The Ministry of Supply had hitherto looked to manufacturers of valves close to London, so for example Mullard at Merton (but also at their Blackburn factory), EMI at Hayes and Cossor at Harlow. Ferranti took on a further factory at Chadderton increasing their visibility and place in Oldham's community.

Moston became home to the manufacture of guided missile systems including the Bloodhound. The Bloodhound research bore fruit in automation control systems for industry but also for BOAC’s seat reservation system.

Avro moved its production from Manchester to Woodford at the start of the Second World War. They built a new factory of one million square feet at Chadderton near Oldham. They also managed a new shadow factory at Yeadon in the outskirts of Leeds. They began with Ansons with Armstrong Siddeley Cheetah engines. Their first heavy bomber was the Manchester. Its successor was, of course, the Lancaster powered by Rolls-Royce Merlin engines; Merlins had been intended for fitment to the Supermarine Spitfire. In the event they powered both.

A total of 7,377 Lancasters were built during the war by the production group which comprised: Avro itself at Newton Heath (Manchester) and Yeadon; Armstrong Whitworth at Baginton (Coventry), Bitteswell (Lutterworth) and South Marston (Swindon); Austin Motors (Longbridge); Metropolitan-Vickers (Manchester); Vickers Armstrong (Chester and Castle Bromwich); and Victory Aircraft in Canada.

Oldham continues its engineering heritage in companies like Oldham Engineering which had offered precision engineering since 1861. There are also anumber of textile manufactures remaining in the town.

Further reading

Hartley Bateson, A Centenary History of Oldham (Oldham County Borough Council, 1949)